Camera Phone Scanning World

The Mobile Codes Consortium, also known as MC2, comprised of Publicis Groupe, Zenith Optimedia, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories,
Gavitec AG ,  Active Print (HP Labs & Gavitec) ,  Neomedia Technologies, has published its Mission Statement.   The introductory paragraphs are below, and the entire document is available here.

There is also a developing conversation on the All About Mobile Life site.

Executive Summary

A new use of an existing technology emerged 2 years ago in the Far East that could revolutionise and accelerate mobile internet adoption and, to a different extent, messaging and voice across the globe. For this to happen, the various stakeholders in the industry must coordinate over some key decisions. This document is a mission statement for the mobile industry, to create a consortium for a new mobile marketing ecosystem based around camera phones and 2D barcodes. A market-driven, open-standards approach will allow 2D barcodes to act as a catalyst in mobile internet adoption, mirroring the growth of web adoption over the last ten years.

The Vision is Already Reality

Outside, in a café, a mobile handset camera is pointed at an advertisement, poster, leaflet or beer-mat. In just one click, the user arrives at a webpage designed specifically for that location. No struggle with the compromised navigational systems of mobile websites; no wait – just the instant fulfillment of the user’s needs. The spontaneity of the response encourages an internet connection there and then; the internet content is relevant to the precise time and location of the user; the advertiser can track exactly which piece of paper generated the user response – and the mobile handset has enabled a trouble-free and relevant experience of the web that is potentially more useful to website provider and user alike. And of course, the mobile industry benefits from increased usage of the internet over mobile handsets.
This is the reality now – but only in a few special campaigns. With a coordinated approach, it is within reach as a mass phenomenon. It just needs the mobile industry to deliver the technological infrastructure and business framework to enable this new stage of adoption.

QuickMark, provider of free QR Code readers for cell phones, has added support for several new phone models including:

Asus P525
Asus P535
Eten X500
Eten M700
HTC Trinity
HTC Herald
HTC Artemis
HTC Excalibur

Software for these phones and others can be found on the QuickMark download page.

via MoDaCo

Tommi’s S60 Applications Blog has published a “2D Barcode Manifesto” making 10 key points regarding 2D barcodes.  Even better is the conversation that readers have started as a result of the post.   There is a lot of good conversation on the topic.   Here are Tommi’s 10 main points.   Read the article for all the detail.

1. The potential of 2D barcodes is limited only by your imagination

2. Mobile devices - formerly known as phones - will define the game

3. Barcode readers tightly integrated in devices

4. Free barcode generators

5. Avoiding fragmentation: emergence of global de-facto standards

6. Avoiding patent wars

7. Avoiding the “tragedy of anticommons”

8. Data Matrix and QR Code are currently the only feasible alternatives to emerge as de-facto standards

9. Unleashing user-driven innovation

10. Enabling 3rd party innovation

Semapedia (introductory article here), the organization that links QR Codes with articles on Wikipedia, is now available in German.  Now the site supports English, Italian, and German.

Hot on the heels of my previous post on ShotCodes, I came across an interview with ShotCodes CEO Dennis Hettema by Heather Paulson at ReveNews.  It is a detailed look at how OP3, the company behind ShotCodes, got started, and how the service works.   He does make a good point that keeping ShotCodes proprietary rather than open allows OP3 to control the look and use of ShotCodes and avoid the confusion that arises when some companies use more open standards such as QR Codes and Datamatrix codes, but add a proprietary element to the process.  If you want some insight into OP3 and ShotCodes, this interview is the place to start.

Shotcodes are one of a number of consumer oriented camera phone readable code formats on the market.  In many ways they are similar to Datamatrix Codes, QR Codes, and Semacodes.  

Shotcodes are the product of OP3, based in Sweden.  OP3 is taking a closed (not necessarily bad) approach to mobile phone camera readable codes.   While Datamatrix Codes and QR Codes are free to use and can be created online on a number of sites, to the best of my knowledge the only place that Shotcodes can be created and managed is in conjunction with OP3 and their Shotcode web site.   When someone scans a Shotcode they are (invisibly) routed through Shotcode servers to the site contained in the code which allows OP3 to provide metrics to marketers.

It appears that OP3 is betting that through big marketing partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola (story here), they hope to encourage cell phone users to download the required code reading software to their phones and to participate in marketing campaigns.   This is a much different strategy than was used in Japan where QR Codes and Datamatrix codes became wildly popular because mobile phone providers pre-installed code reading software on new phones and used widely accepted and open code standards.  Marketers had an easy time leveraging software already in 10 of millions of hands.

Obviously OP3 has an uphill battle by going the route they have chosen.  The odds of gaining anything close to universal use of Shotcodes are long (and expensive for OP3).   On the other hand, OP3 is giving corporate marketers what they need, an easy, enterprise ready way to create, track, and manage campaigns driven by Shotcodes.  And they appear to have had some good success to date.

I think the Shotcode folks stop by here from time to time, and I would really like their take on this.

Conventional barcodes are capable of storing approximately 20 digits, QR Codes are capable of storing substantially more data.  The storage capacity of QR Codes depends on the type of data that is being stored.

The table below (from the Denso-Wave web site) indicates how much data can be stored in numeric, alphanumeric, binary, and Kanji forms.